h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Er ... you do know that 'four votes pledged' is including the two of us, don't you?

After that, we've got Footie with the jingle thing. And I got Arisz Lugosi to vote for you on the strength of promising to abolish her homework.

Other than that, every time I start to campaign anywhere, Jodan and Hypatia keep swooping in and being all reasonable.

I think we need to promise something *insanely* impractical. Reversing global warming, perhaps. Immortality for all. Free jet-packs?

I think we should propose a flat-rate tax. They seem to be flavour of the month. Of course, all the other hopefuls will try to nick the idea, just as they did our foreign policy. Mind you, we did nick the and ideas, so maybe we should keep quiet about that.

I prefer to rely on our chosen campaign slogan, which, if repeated often enough, will stick in people's brains long enough for them to vote for us.

What do you think?

RF

The endless repetition of the slogan is good. Very Orwellian. Bound to pay off.

Couldn't we tax the hegemony? Then smash it. They pay all the taxes, get smashed, then everyone's happy.

(Till the revenue runs out. But you're in by that stage)

I thought I might have a go at an election broadcast too. Something really arresting, with lots of sloganeering and plucking of heartstrings

Yes. See if you can get that Campbell bloke. I hear he's good. Or Mandelson (I hear he's slimy).

I've been taking a very laidback approach to campaigning - where are these people gathering all thir pledges? Somewhere I don't hang out, obviously.

We have got a certain number of candidates fighting the election on our terms (hegemony-smashing) and I think we need to direct our energies in continuing to make them come to us for the issues to be fought over. Endless sloganeering is the way to do this, I feel. What do you think Hypatia's weakness is, and can we get a slogan that will engage her and help engineer her downfall?

RF

Hypatia and Jodan are the main opposition at this stage, I think. They seem to be succeeding by honing in on a central core of articulate and reasonable researchers and then being unfailingly pleasant and sensible.

It's infuriating

Every time I try to start some sort of lowest common denominator dirty-tricks spat, they offer me cider and cake and ... well, they're just nice. Dammit.

I'll get on with the 'broadcast'

See what I mean?

F2541852?thread=1028854&post=11364732#p11364535

These people are so *nice*

What are they doing in politics?

For your inspection

A5815767

It's not quite 'there' yet

I like it!

Especially then Flash Gordon imagery.

Smash! Aah-aah!

We have another supporter, btw - Sho ( U129860 ) has pledged her support to our campaign. Has she signed up on the Campaign HQ?

RF

I revised my tagline upwards over the weekend in fact.

I haven't put any names up on the campaign page, because that would be tacky

*Throws self into chair* Phew! The PPB is up and running. I've savaged Jodan's tax plans, poo-pooed fords' broadcast and think I might have lured 'Badger' into a defection.

Oh. And I, er, 'released' your official campaign portrait

Had a big campaign-off late last night, trying to convince EvilClaw's Evil Army not to vote for Hypatia - haven't quite got round to the bit where I convince them to vote for us instead - and in the middle of a really fraught bit of argumentation I had a bit of a revelation.

I think I know how you can win.

But I don't know if you're going to like it

We must win at all costs! Does it involve killing twatden?

RF

Er ... no. Well ... I can certainly get the focus group on to that

It's like this - we want to smash the 2legs hegemony. Trouble is, there are lots of other hegemonies out there (I've seen them - some of them are quite big, especially the ones with ). And the more campaigning I do, the more I think the main thing is not to have any hegemonies at all.

I've met quite a few people I've never really talked to doing this campaigning lark and it's made me realise how big hootoo is and how various it is. Politically, it's pretty much an anarchy, lots of blobs and factions and loners all interacting and splitting and doing their own thing. And that's how I like it. And that's how I think quite a lot of people who haven't yet shown any interest in the election like it too.

So *gulp* what you do is this. You promise to stand down and abolish the presidency immediately after having been elected, so abolishing all hegemonies and returning power to the people.

No kings, no presidents, no councils. Just back to chaos.

Whaddya think?

It sounds plausible...although I seem to recall that the 2egs hegemony may have already promised to do something similar.

However, I want POWER! REAL POWER!!! I've heard that power corrupts, and I want to be corrupted.

I think we should kill twatden anyway, just in case.

RF

Ah - well, promises made by other parties are easy. We just say they're lying.

Real power? Hmmm. Tricky. All right, I'll keep going - we're going to need something radical though.

(Have you seen Master B's posting yet, btw? I was lucky enough to be up late last night I was praying it would be there in the morning, but it only lasted about fifteen minutes )

It's been emailed to me. Overuse of the word f**king, but otherwise a well-thought-out and lucid piece of reasoning.

I'm starting a new movement: going to twatden's PS, and posting a message headed either "what you're doing wrong" or "why no-one likes you", and explaining, in words of one syllable, what that is.

RF

(Struck me it was a good diatribe and I'm pretty sure he posted something similar before - just without the swearing The moderators must have some sort of swearword detector, because they found it just like that).

Looks like the competition might be tightening up a notch or two

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Wasn't the closing date for nominations yesterday?

I'm not too worried.

We might want to start thinking about a tactical alliance with some of the other candidates, though...

RF

Such as ... ?